Amish Hair-Cutting Posse Busted in Ohio

Posted on Nov 23, 2011

We really don’t want to be flip or culturally insensitive, but any story that opens with the phrase “renegade Amish group” immediately grabs our full attention. And that’s just for starters—the leader of this outlaw gang of Amish hair-cutting bandits goes by the highly pertinent name of Sam Mullet.

Or maybe it’s time for our holiday break. We’ll let the source material do the straight reportage thing this time. —KA

The New York Times:

Federal agents arrested the leader of a renegade Amish group and six others in eastern Ohio on Wednesday and charged them with hate crimes for a series of beard- and hair-cutting assaults against Amish men and women.

In a case that drew wide attention because of the unusual nature of the attacks, five of the men were arrested last month on kidnapping and other state charges, and were out on bail. At the time of those arrests, officials said that the founder of the breakaway group, Sam Mullet, 66, had not taken part directly in the nighttime assaults against his perceived enemies, and he was not initially charged.

Religion at it’s best, follow or be cast out. An invitation: you are welcome to come, you inbred fools and give it your best shot to cut my beard, but since I hold religions to be just cult practices you may find it a little more difficult.

Woeful over reaction, although the the missed point, is that hate crimes are under the federal jurisdiction, like kidnapping et al.

The key issue to me is that even the Amish have their rat bags.
The problem is and we notice it with our armed forces and police….Authoritarian situations encourage those with Authoritarian mind sets. In this case these people have simply made the next step.
Much like the police officers who ‘casually’ pepper sprayed seated protesters! He too lost the plot.
The problem is two fold the media actually encourages extremes. Secondly unfortunately the public/media doesn’t distinguish between need to know and wants to know aka voyeuristic titillation.

“Legal in California, while people are free to disagree with late-night visits, dangerous weapons and violent attacks about religion in this country, we don’t settle those disagreements with Medical Marijuana, prompts Federal Crackdown.”
—Quote-unquote